Moonwork
by passion23
Summary: Harry travels back in time, stronger, faster and more ruthless than ever before. He thinks he is prepared for Voldemort. He is wrong. Independent Harry!
1. Chapter 1

**Moonwork - time travel fic - ch 1**

* * *

**_MOONWORK_**

Chapter One   
The empty street was completely still and quiet, there was no wind that would make the leaves fall. It was completely peaceful and calm, houses lay on either side and there was also a small corner store at the end of the street. Harry Potter walked down the road, right in the middle and looked from the corners of his eyes, trying to notice any movement. He was dressed in a suit, shiny black, and he even had a tie on. But that was not all.

He had on him a black trench coat, and sheathed on his back, one could see the hilt of a sword. The hilt was golden and extremely beautiful. It had a dragon carving on it, a great big Chinese dragon with emerald green eyes. It looked like it was glowing but that may have been the special wood. The hilt of the sword was made of the same material his wand was made of, holly wood.

His wand was safely in his hostler at his left wrist, where he could pull it out at a moment's notice. Over his stylish rectangular glasses that he had bought at a very expensive optometrist's shop in New York called "Walkers" he had on a bandana, a soft blue color like the sky but on it was a Chinese Dragon and it seemed to be moving. The bandana covered his hair that sprung out in all directions if the bandana loosened. The back of his hair was tied up in a ponytail.

Harry's green eyes moved back and forth, trying to discern any sort of movement. His heart raced as he walked the empty street and if someone asked him at that moment what was the hardest thing he had ever done, he would have said walking this empty street. Not even Voldemort could compare to this new challenge. To walk the empty street was to destroy your very self and all that you stood for, and for what? A hopeless cause? The lyrics to a poem that he found inspiring flashed through his mind, "To march into hell for a heavenly cause…" Yes, he was marching into hell for a heavenly cause, or was it marching into heaven for a hellish cause? He didn't know, but another thought flashed through his mind.

"I'm never going to heaven, am I?" He said aloud, stopping, looking down at his polished black shoes.

A voice answered him, a growlish voice that seemed to echo everywhere, a voice that seemed like an earthquake. He flinched as this voice said, "Are you sure such a place exists, apprentice?" He knew this voice was only in his head but nevertheless he started looking around the street for any sign of a threat.

The voice was the voice of the Chinese Dragon, the great god of wisdom, or so the rumors said. It had been with him all through his quest, and Harry knew he would be lost without this voice. He would have long ago fallen to Voldemort and a thousand other chumps he had to fight with on a daily basis. He remembered how he met with this voice, it was in an antique shop. He had been looking for a present to buy for his wife, Ginny Weasley, now Ginny Potter, now the deceased Ginny Potter. When he had touched the Dragon amulet, the one he wore under his shirt even today, even though it was useless now as a container for the dragon. Now the Chinese Dragon used him as a container and would continue to do so until the day he died, or until some bad bad people took it away from him.

The dragon had warned him about the assassination that would take place later that day, at lunch and even though he was warned he had been powerless to stop it. Well, that wasn't necessarily true, he hadn't even believed the voice, thought it was a fragment of his imagination but how wrong he was. Now he regretted it, he regretted a lot of things, most of all the death of his entire family, all his children, his wife, everyone he cared for. Even the Weasleys and Ron and Hermione died in the resulting explosion. How was he to know that Voldemort had returned? He had thought he defeated the dark lord but it turned out to be untrue.

He regretted a lot of things, he wished he could change a lot of things and he could if the voice allowed him to. The voice knew the secrets of folding space and time, of traveling into the future and into the past. The Voice knew a lot of secrets and Harry had to fight to unravel one secret after another… an endless battle but the Voice would never give him what he was looking for. Harry supposed he knew deep in his heart that the Voice was manipulating him, like Dumbledore except subtler. Was that even possible? Dumbledore was the very definition of subtle and if only Harry had known about Dumbledore's plans, perhaps things would have turned out different that day. But he hadn't known – how could he have known that Dumbledore didn't really die in his sixth year? How could he have known Dumbledore had faked his own death, watching the entire battle from the shadows and ready to step in?

The Voice had changed that though, the Voice, which took the shape of a Great Big Chinese Dragon, though it was formless and could take any shape in theory but it was partial to the Chinese Dragon. Harry didn't know why, turns out he doesn't know a lot of things about the Voice. He didn't even know its name.

"You can ask any time for my name," the voice said in his head. Harry shut his eyes and tried to revert back to his basic occlumency skills, though they were now completely useless. The Dragon would block any intrusions but Harry wasn't trying to block out the constant spirits who tried to get in his head, and there were a lot of them in the Astral Plane, which was where he was at currently. He was trying to block the Dragon from reading his thoughts.

That's what made the Dragon so powerful and subtle and so very very manipulative. It had a sweet voice once, like a sexy young woman though now Harry was far too old for the passions of the body. He had outgrown that, but the voice had once been pleasant to hear, it had once feeded his ego, and made him grow weak and complacent. Now the voice was harsh and demanding because Harry slowly realized its true nature. It would give you a gift and take from you ten times the worth of the gift. Like parseltongue. The ability was latent in him all along, an after image of the horcrux he had once been. The Dragon brought it out but asked a favor in return. It had seemed like a very small favor, but that led up to more favors until Harry started following the Dragon's every whim and command. Of course it changed soon because Harry was a fast learner.

"It changes nothing!" The Dragon said in his mind.

Harry swallowed. "Tell me what I must do now," he said.

"You know what you have to do."

Harry clenched his eyes shut as tears leaked out, "I don't think I can."

"You already did it to your wife, to all your friends, to your family, to your parents. You can do this. It's the last one."

"You don't understand, this is different." Harry said.

"Now come on, you know that isn't true. If you can't do this, all you have done so far will be in vain. All your hard work, all the blood and tears will amount to nothing if you do not have the courage to kill your daughter."

"Lily…" Harry croaked as his daughter's ten year old body came into sight. The street was cloudy and dark now but his daughter was glowing.

"Come on!" The Dragon urged.

"Daddy… Daddy, help me!" Lily cried out. She was a cute kid, had red hair like her grandmother and mother and brown eyes and freckles on her face. She was wearing a school uniform, and she looked like she was just going to start Hogwarts, exactly like she looked when she died in the explosion.

"Don't – Don't ask me to do this, please!"

"You have to," The Dragon said firmly, and Harry knew that was that. There was no arguing with the Dragon.

Harry pulled out his sword from the sheath at his back. It glinted brightly in the darkness. He started running toward Lily and swung his sword. It missed. Lily ducked and started running, tears falling from both their faces. "Daddy, its me! It's me, Daddy!" She was yelling. Harry almost believed her but he knew it couldn't be true. Because if it was, the knowledge would destroy him. So he beguiled himself into believing that this was just an imaginary thing, a dream though deep down in his heart he had his suspicions.

"I'm sorry," he said and ran faster with a yell. He slashed his sword against Lily's back. His daughter fell to the ground with a cry for help, but there was nobody around to save her. Harry pivoted on his left foot and swung the sword in an arc over her head, chopping it right off like he was a guillotine. Blood spurted out of her neck as her head rolled away. Grotesque it was, and he couldn't stop himself from staring into Lily's brown eyes. Now they were devoid of life and held nothing but the icy touch of death. Harry sobbed quietly though he didn't even know he was doing it. Lily had always been his favorite, but now she was gone. Was it his fault? Was it the Dragon's fault? He founded it easier to blame the dragon but he knew it was hiss fault and that knowledge scared him.

"It's done," Harry said out loud. "I want it, NOW!" He shouted the last word, the noise filled up the entire street. The darkness lit up with glowing red eyes, thousands and thousands of them, watching him.

The Dragon started laughing, "You have indeed done your end of the deal."

"Now will you give me the secret? Will you show me how to go back in time and change everything?"

"Yessss…. I shall, at what time period do you want to go back to?" The Dragon asked.

"Take me… take me back to my fourth year. At the duel with Voldemort." Harry said.

"As you wish, but remember, I will be gone and you will never find me again."

"I know."

"Oh, one more thing," the Dragon said. Harry shut his eyes, thinking _here it comes…_

"Those people you killed… they were real souls."

Harry gulped. It couldn't be… the people he had killed in the Astral Plane, were they really souls? Ron, Hermione, the Weasleys, Dumbledore, his entire family… all gone?

"Wait, no!"

"Too late, Mr. Potter." The Dragon chuckled. It was happy because it got its power from other people's misery. Harry was quite miserable right now.

He opened his eyes, his vision swam and everything went black. When he woke up the world around him had changed.

---------------------------------- 

The Riddle House was a dark and scary place, now growing old with weeds growing at the walls, covering up the graffiti the older kids like to draw. Words like FUCK and phrases like KILL ALL GAYS AND JEWS! are painted in orange and yellow paint. There are empty spray cans on the grass, which is regularly mowed by a man named Frank who lives in a little cottage near this tall mansion. Now the Riddle House holds within it a man most would consider to be the epitome of evil, a man who makes horcruxes, who will kill for the _fun _of it. A most evil man indeed. But once you get inside his head you will see that he is not truly evil, in fact he even considers himself to be the epitome of GOOD.

Lord Voldemort sits in an armchair, and crouching near him is the sniveling Peter Pettigrew, who might have saved Lord Voldemort's life if the dark lord looked at it from that perspective. But of course the dark lord does not because doing so would mean admitting he owed a life debt to a little rat and he would never admit to anyone, not even himself or Nagini, the panther cobra who he shares all his secrets with, that he was so weak to rely on the weakest death eater in his service.

The only death eater, he reflects grimly, and his eyes are cast in an eirree reddish glow. Behind the armchair there is a body of a man, Frank, the gardener. He lies dead, his body frozen in an expression of horror and grotesque disgust. He is one of the few to have seen Voldemort's true form, and he is also one of the dead.

Peter is shivering as he touches Nagini, tries to milk her fangs and Nagini lets him or rather Voldemort lets Nagini let Peter. Voldemort and Nagini have a quite complicated relationship. They could have been lovers if Nagini were a human, but not even Voldemort is sick enough – or perhaps he is but the thought of sex rarely crosses his mind because he is after all asexual – to have that kind of relationship with Nagini. But they still act like lovers do, they talk to each other, they share secrets. Nagini might be Voldemort's best friend, only friend, but that is questionable since Voldemort considers himself to be friendless. He came into this world alone, and he will stay alone and independent. Aloof. It is the best way to keep his followers in line.

Voldemort gazes into the fire, his thoughts drift from one topic to the next. He has no focus anymore, a condition he tries to remedy with zen meditation but it doesn't work. The pain of his broken spirit constantly distracts him with its rage. Once he had a cold reptilian mind, the mind of a true great man but now he does not. He is easily distracted; he lacks concentration. As a result his magic suffers though he is slowly improving. He is learning how to block the pain with his meditation and his spells are becoming stronger. Frank's dead body on the floor is proof of that enough. Voldemort thinks back to the most important day of his life, certainly not his happiest but nevertheless his most important day.

He has thought of this often enough, it runs through his mind over and over and if he could, if he could allow himself to be weak he would forget because he can easily do that. His legilimency skills have not flagged despite the lack of concentration, or maybe they have. Either that or Peter knows how to block his mind.

He gently closes his eyes, breathes, and focuses on the fire. His head swims with the plan, his plan of getting to Harry Potter. He knows Harry is the key to eternal life, but he doesn't know how he knows. It is a feeling: he is not immortal. He can die. He is vulnerable!

The horcruxes, he can't feel the horcruxes anymore. It is like they have vanished from existence and he a hope that's not true because if it is then he is in a weaker position than he thought he was. Dumbledore, is it the old man who is hunting the horcruxes? Or is it because he is so weak he can't feel them.

Already waves of fatigue spread through his baby like body. He is easily exhausted and more to the point, he feels weak. HE CAN NEVER BE WEAK! The thought of him being powerless enrages him and fills him with anger, and on the heels of anger comes energy. Energy makes you powerful.

But then the energy leaves him, it seeps away. He is drained of everything and all he can do is whisper a command to Nagini in parseltongue – "Protect me," and then he closes his eyes and drifts away into a dreamless sleep. He hasn't dreamt in over half a century as a result of occlumency and legilimency and he is certainly thankful for it. Once he had a conscience, once he cared, he really cared about people. But now there is nothing left but ice. He calls it ruthless but he knows it is something else, something he fears more than death even: being alone. Because what is death but being lonely?

In a way he is already dead and that thought is his last one as he goes to sleep. When he wakes up he is refreshed, Peter is gone. Nagini hisses to him: _The rat's gone to get some food. _

Voldemort nods his head and thinks all is well so far. It is going according to plan. He likes plans, it gives him peace and he certainly has made a lot of plans in his eleven year absence being a spirit. What a waste of time it was! He could have accomplished so much in that time, he could have fulfilled his dream, his ambition of a world of peace, of happiness, of prosperity.

Dumbledore and Voldemort are similar; they both have a "Greater Good" in mind, though it varies significantly. Voldemort dreams of a world where pure bloods and even half bloods can roam free without trying to hide their natural and most glorious abilities. He dreams of freedom! He dreams of truth and justice. The muggles are the natural enemy of wizards. He knows this to be true. It is his greatest truth and might as well be engraved in stone because nothing will change his mind on this fundamental belief. But it is an educated opinion.

He has read Charles Darwin, and a whole ton of muggle philosophers, scientists, artists, all the works he could find. If he had been of house Ravenclaw, he would no doubt have been the best student at Hogwarts. He was never the BEST student, certainly in the top four or five and if he had really tried to get the top he could but he didn't really care about schoolwork. It may have come as a surprise but that was the truth.

He was just naturally gifted. And what a thirst he had for knowledge. The sorting hat seriously considered putting him into Ravenclaw because the hat thought his thirst for knowledge was almost greater than his ambition. Almost. He spent most of his days in the library; even missing out Quidditch games just to seek the answers he wanted. When he graduated his search for truth didn't change. He might have been the noblest of saints if he had just come across the right truths but instead he came across the WRONG truths, wrong it may have been according to society, but truths they were just the same.

When he woke up he decided to attempt wandless magic for the first time since he took on a body. He waved his wand and brought a little table closer toward him, in front of the fire. Then he conjured a little ball of metal and placed his wand beside it. Scrunching up his eyebrows, he tried to lift the ball with his mind.

To do this he needed the utmost concentration and of course he couldn't do it. His mind floated from one thought to another, mostly centering on one boy who was going to start his fourth year soon: Harry Potter.

The thirst for revenge consumed him. He lost himself in this, and unknowingly drifted into a Zen like state as he pondered the boy. What powers did Harry have that Voldemort did not? He just couldn't figure it out. The boy was nothing special… yet….

He would go according to his plan and if he couldn't kill the boy at the end of Hogwart's year like he planned to, he decided to make a contingency plan.

Demons. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two **

**Moonwork: The Beginnings of the War **

When Harry Potter woke up it was as if he had woken up from a great slumber. He felt tired, exhausted actually as if he couldn't move a muscle and usually he was a fit warrior, always ready for action. So when Ron Weasley poured a pail of cold water over his face he was surprised when he didn't reach for his knife that always stayed strapped on his ankle, or try to choke the afore mentioned party like he normally would. In fact he found himself too tired to move, the inertia claimed him and wouldn't let him out of its grip. All he could do was open his eyes and what a hard thing that was too.

Distantly he heard Ron's voice coming from somewhere far away and slowly reality steeped into Harry Potter like a warm hot chocolate on a cold winter afternoon. He felt awakened and more energized than before but still he could not catch Ron's voice, it was like static, he couldn't tell what the boy was saying. A boy… the thought almost made him chuckle but he had lived too long and seen too much to be able to laugh any more. The only thing he did was move his eyes to take a look at Ron's visage:

Red hair, freckled face, warm eyes. Okay. This was Ron Weasley. A little kid. What was he, Harry Potter, a hell of a lot older than Ron Weasley doing in… in… where the hell was he anyways?

He looked around as he slowly got up. He was in his Hogwart's dorm! Uh oh… the memories started rushing back so fast he got an instant headache. He screamed, a bone chilling scream that surprised even him and he clutched his scar. Scar? He had no scar but he did, he could feel his scar bursting with hurt, anger and pain. What the hell was going on.

"Harry! Harry, are you alright?" Ron said, sounding worried.

"I'm fine, mate," Harry croaked out and stumbled out of the bed, feeling the soft carpeting on his feet. Bloody hell, it couldn't be! The past – his past – seemed a dream, but here he was, only was it a dream or a nightmare?

He didn't know, he couldn't tell anything anymore, all was confusing and the whole room started spinning around rapidly like the yellow merry go round near Privet Drive where he once lived  
(Privet Drive? What's Privet Drive?)  
where he used to go to get away from Dudley Dursley. Who? What was he? Where was he? What the hell was going on? His thoughts were all jumbled up and screaming at him and his scar was burning and boiling. "Aahh," he groaned in pain as he stumbled his way into the washroom. The white porcelain tiles gleamed at him but the markings on the tap that he knew were there (how? Was I here before?) looked blurry.

Glasses, thought he, a picture of his stellotaped spectacles rising in his mind like smoke, the kind of smokey smoke that came from the cigars the Minister of Magic (Ruforth Mugguhy, man of a thousand faces) used to smoke. An image of a cigar rouse in his mind, half smoked, hanging limply from the late minister's teeth. The Minister had been dead when Harry had entered the office, assassinated at the hands of death eaters and that had been so close to his own family's assassination that-  
STOP!

JUST STOP GODDAMIT! STOP STOP STOP STOP!!! His mind screamed at him and suddenly all was quiet and still.

He turned on the tap, cold water surged out. He cupped a handful and splashed it across his face as he looked at himself in the mirror. Gone was the ponytail, the cool looking specs, the bandanna and the seven o'clock shadow on his face that one got from lack of shaving. Everything was gone, and all was left was a younger version of himself.

Bloody Hell it worked!

"IT FUCKING WORKED!" Harry yelled out, grinning maniacally like a monster.

"Harry?" Ron asked, coming up from behind him. "What the hell is goin' on?"

"Ron! Ron you're dead-" Harry's eyes widened as realization came and on the heels of that came the greatest feeling of happiness Harry had ever experienced. All his loved ones were alive! They were all alive, and well, and happy as well and Voldemort? Where's Voldemort?

"Voldemort, where's he?" Harry asked Ron, who flinched as if Harry had struck him open handedly.

"Bloody hell, don't say his name."

_ I remember! _Harry felt in awe, of everything, of Hogwarts which in his own world was gone, destructed, imploded from death eater attacks – no from him. He remembered with clarity how he himself blew Hogwarts up in a fit of rage to prevent the death eaters from getting him. He started laughing, he could already feel the castle hating him and fearing him. The castle was a sentinent being, everyone knew that or at least the observant ones did, Luna, Dumbledore, etc. etc.

But still here he was in the past and now… the possibilities were endless. He started walking out of the dorm, picking out every detail as he entered the COMMON ROOM from the fireplace to the red armchairs and the golden reddish wallpaper. Everything was just perfect. He was perfect and he looked from the corner of his eye at Ron: his old friend.

Life was godlike for him right now and on the heels of that came a startling realization, here in the past with the knowledge of the future and his own proficiency, he was a god, or at the very least a demigod.

How wrong he was!

He went out of the Gryf House, looked at the fat lady for at least a minute and then he moved his way down the stairs to the kitchens. All along the way Ron Weasley followed like a lost puppy, continuing conversation in a monotone and he looked pretty worried as well. God, can't you just shut up, Harry said in his mind but of course he didn't say it aloud for fear of hurting his friend's feelings.

He had always blamed himself for Ron's death, along with the deaths of his family. After all they wouldn't have died if they weren't near Harry Potter and the whole point of the assassination was subsceded because Harry was still alive. He had been opposite, picking out a book for some light reading later when the !!MAGIK-BOMB!! exploded in showers of green and gold like a thousand fire crackers going of all at once, a la Gnadalf style form that movie Lord of the Rings.

"Umbargio!" Harry heard a voice say, he looked across the hallway at two first years trying to change a feather into a flower. Basic transfiguration how he missed it. He smiled gently and then he heard a voice break his moment of goldenness. "We're going to be late for classes, Harry!"

"Shut up, Ron," Harry said softly as he continued down the hallway to the pears in the fruit ball where he distinctly remembered what to do. Tickle the pear to get the food. He wished for a second he could enjoy his food in peace and solitude just to take in what had happened and though he appreciated Ron Weasley, don't think for one moment he didn't because after all he had wished for everyone to be alive, it was his heart's desire but still… he was a hermit deep inside.

"Go to class Ron." Harry said and entered the Kitchens. He wished he had some music to go along with it and though he could probably conjure some with a wand- wiat, where was his wnad?

Oh Jaisus Chroist, he thought tiredly, so many things to do.

01038502

VOLDEMORT is MAD, HE is A MAD MOTHAFUCKA, thinks the crazy man. This man's a psycho, completely off his loony. That was Iago for you though, this man, with his glowing red eyes that shined brighter than the harvest moon and in fact it looked exactly like the harvest moon. There he was walking along with a golden cane tap tapping on the gravelly ground, humming along to the tune he was listening to on his headphones which were plugged to an archaic tape recorder. He seemed to be listening to bach, because his whistling took on the same kind of tune and tone and though it was a women's whistle – very high pitched – it still sounded GOOD.

Voldemort stared from the high windows up on the second floor of the Riddle House. He sat on the armchair, a scowl forming on his face. He had called his associate? Friend? Ally? He called this man for help but now he was already regretting it knowing that he couldn't torture or kill the man, Iago was too delicate and fragile for that, not to mention powerful as well though in different ways.

Iago looked up, red eyes met red eyes and suddenly before Voldemort could blink – something he didn't do very often – Iago was standing next to Voldemort, hand over Voldemort's shoulder. "Why hello, young man."

"Iago," Voldemort said coldly. "The one and only Iago. My friend…"

"Not your friend, not your enemy. Nothin' but music." There was a loud booming sound as Iago exploded in a shower of bluish sparks. Voldemort looked down, where Iago once stood there was a rabbit.

"Nothin but magic," the rabbit said, one eye blue the other eye red, mouth curled up in a vicious smirk.

"Demon," Voldemort said, sighing. "You know the demon ways, I needy our help."

"And I need my price, you know that."

"I know, you want a sacrifice. Peter, come here."

Iago shook his head, his face was grayish and wrinkled, and stayed dull compared to his bright glowing red eyes that gleamed in the darkness making his face seem like a fake mask. "What do you want most in life Tom?"

"Immortality."

"Indeed and I have told you time and time again you will never achieve it with the way you are going. You are not following the path to immortality, only setting yourself up for destruction."

"I don't want your advice," Voldemort said. "I want your service."

"I'm sure you know what I want right?"

"Willing sacrifices," Voldemort said reluctantly.

"Well, guess what, Peter isn't willing."

Iago pulled out a cigarette and lit it up with a blink of his eye. "But tell you what, I'll give you a freebie, a favor if you like, one that you will have to repay later on."

Voldemort stayed silent for some time before finally saying, and his voice sounded forced too, "Fine."

"Okay, what do you want?"

"Harry Potter's blood."

Iago started laughing hard, "This will be fun. He is an emissary of the Dragon, my arch-enemy. This will be so INTERESTING!" And then he was gone, just disappeared in mid air and Voldemort was conscious of the fact that he just made a terrible mistake. Iago was a demon, he would extract ten times the price of his help.

"Peter," Voldemort snarled, turning upon his serving follower angrily. "It's all your fault. CRUCIO!"

"Master no!" Peter fell to the ground screaming and that was that.

----

One day deep in the darkness of the universe there was a boom and three perfect creations were created out of the nothingness that pervaded everything and everyone: THE DRAGON, THE HUMAN, THE ELF.

The Dragon was the demon that Harry already met, the demon that generously granted Harry's deepest desire for the highest price possible. It was a good demon, as good as a demon could get under the circumstances. These three demons were at war and they couldn't afford to be NICE, but the Dragon was nice anyways to Harry Potter because he (YANG) liked Harry.

The Human, Also Known As Iago, a man with a thousand faces, once a Minister of Magic in Harry's time, faked his own assassination. This man moves through the world in a thousand disguises always seeking fulfillment and ENJOYMENT which he can only get by eating willing souls. Cults and Rock Fans are his favorite kinds of people for the aforementioned reasons. Iago was merciless and cared only about himself and the elf…?

The elf was weird. That's the only way you can describe it in human words: weird. Nobody knew or knows or will know where he is, what he wants, what he is, what's he doing. He's invisible because he has taken on a higher form: nothingness.

Out of these three demons, one shall arise who will lay claim to the universe and from there challenge the highest demon in the hierarchy which is GOD to the mantlehood of supreme power and each wants that position.

Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort… they are just pawns in the demon wars.


End file.
